ABSTRACT
In line with recent developments in urban research, this chapter assumes that the intricate dynamics of urbanisation and globalisation processes materialise well beyond face-to-face symbolic interaction and performance on the local scale. To think that the good city and the good life are intrinsically interwoven – that it is impossible to think of a political constellation where citizens thrive absent robust and just urban development – is, for better and worse, to engage with a long tradition in Western political thought that grants prominence to the city. However, truncated views of the city as a separate and self-enclosed unit are insufficient to develop satisfactory understandings of the good city and need to be extended through a ‘non-parochial politics of place’.
